Ebooks, shipping mandarin books home

[CaliGirl]

Hi all-

there is a very useful thread on this forum about shipping books home that I will link below. 

https://www.chinese-forums.com/forums/topic/29140-shipping-books-from-china-to-the-us/?tab=comments#comment-231210

 

1. Can you recommend any mandarin language EBOOKS for beginner, elementary, intermediate and advanced level?

 

2. If you have shipped books bought here to your homecountry (e.g. USA) did you have any issues with customs? Any unexpected fees? I don't mind how long shipping takes but some of my books will be brand new. 

 

3. Alternatively, Can anyone recommend a place to get Boya and CDev books in Honk Kong? I haven't found any company that carries them so far and the language schools I reached out to use their own printouts/learning materials. I will have international luggage allowance from Hong Kong to the US. 

Thanks 

[Luxi]

7 hours ago, CaliGirl said:

Can anyone recommend a place to get Boya...

 

I don't know about HK bookshops, but if you want to save your luggage allowance for other things, you can order Boya from Purple Culture, see this search page here. They are reliable, fast to reply, the prices are comparable to mainland stores and accept PayPal as well as cards from non-Chinese banks. I've bought books and other items from them without problems, delivery by email is reasonably cheap and takes only about 2-3 weeks to UK, not sure how long to US or whether you'd have to pay customs duties.

I can't say anything about CDev books because I have no idea what they are, but search, they might all be there

 

8 hours ago, CaliGirl said:

Can you recommend any mandarin language EBOOKS for beginner, elementary, intermediate and advanced level?

 

No (others will, I'm sure), but you can always check and decide by yourself, using the 试读 (trial-read) option from online ebook shops. It gives you contents list, introduction, and enough pages to tell what level it is, and even whether you're interested or not. There are many Chinese ebook shops now, here are some I regularly use:

https://read.douban.com/ebooks/?dcs=book-nav&dcm=douban
http://www.duokan.com/
http://e.dangdang.com/index_page.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[889]

Hong Kong is generally not a good place to buy books. They're usually expensive, and bookstores are limited for a such a large city.

[CaliGirl]

@Luxi thanks for the thorough response! (Something I have found myself constantly missing ?). That website is pure gold. I will have to check what their shipping costs are. If they have an inventory in Hong Kong, that would be perfect. 

Do you have any recommendation about mandarin books in general? I am looking at HSK, practical Chinese and Boya/developing Chinese. I think I learn a lot of worlds with Boya but I am not having as much fine as I usually do learning a new language. I miss dialogues and insight into the language culture. 

[roddy]

For general recommendations it might be worth starting a new topic - the question wont' get seen so much under the current title, or at least not by the right people.

[Luxi]

5 hours ago, CaliGirl said:

Do you have any recommendation about mandarin books in general? I am looking at HSK, practical Chinese and Boya/developing Chinese.

 

I'm not the right person to ask. I'm De Francis vintage, my formal Chinese studies predate HSK, so I have no hands-on experience with modern textbooks. But if you search around in this forum you'll find thousands of posts on books. You can start here:

https://www.chinese-forums.com/forums/forum/46-textbooks-for-learning-chinese/

 

This page from the Purple Culture site may help too

https://www.purpleculture.net/comparison-of-chinese-graded-readers-article-41/

 

 

[Flickserve]

On 3/25/2019 at 11:03 AM, CaliGirl said:

 

3. Alternatively, Can anyone recommend a place to get Boya and CDev books in Honk Kong? I haven't found any company that carries them so far and the language schools I reached out to use their own printouts/learning materials. I will have international luggage allowance from Hong Kong to the US. 

 

Never seen them sold in the shops in Hong Kong.

[DavyJonesLocker]

On 3/25/2019 at 11:03 AM, CaliGirl said:

1. Can you recommend any mandarin language EBOOKS for beginner, elementary, intermediate and advanced level?

 

 

not in terms of text books but certainly there are many graded readers available e.g. PLECO, mandarin companion etc

 

In hindsight  i would tackle graded readers much earlier in my studies.